Mobile devices and other user equipment that are not actively sending or receiving data traffic enter an idle state after a brief period of inactivity. When traffic arrives from the network for the user equipment device, the network executes device activation procedures to wake the device up. Device activation procedures represent a significant portion of all communication network signaling.
The number of subscriber devices that connect to wireless networks has been growing at a very fast pace for many years. In the past, consumer purchase of manually-operated devices such as smart phones, tablets, etc. has driven the majority of the growth. However, a recent trend has started to emerge in which a different class of device is beginning to drive a significant proportion of the growth of subscriber devices that utilize wireless network services. Machine-to-machine devices such as smart meters, smart appliances, sensors, or the like, are not manually operated by a user when connecting to the network and communicating data but are increasingly becoming subscribers of wireless networks. It is expected that in the coming years M2M devices that use wireless network services will grow to the billions, possibly many hundreds of billions, which can place unsustainable stress on communication networks, specifically with regard to device activation signaling.